Monday, April 20, 2009

The young

It was fascinating observing Italian youth in Florence and Siena. There were school groups all over Florence, many Italian.

Now, as context for this post, Eliza and I don't hang around teenagers much (at all?). There's a high school nearby, though, and Eliza will see them walking to school from their cars. And then there's late spring, when you're at a restaurant and suddenly feel under-dressed when you turn around and see decked-out girls and boys pile out of limos for prom night. The girls always seem older and more put-together than the guys. They seem to put more effort into it.

In Tuscany (at least, in Florence and Siena), it seemed quite the opposite. The girls just seemed "normal" (the usual low-rider jeans (I think that's what the kids call them now?) and such but nothing much beyond that) while the guys seemed to really be making a lot of effort. There were snazzy jackets, ball-caps in stand-out colors, and these huge sunglasses. In particular, there was this thing happening with the hair, where they'd gel the hair around the crown of the skull so it stood straight up. (do they do that here now, too? to the same extent? if so, we haven't seen it) Apologies for the awkward photos, a byproduct of surreptitious photo-taking of moving targets.

You can't really make out the hot pink sunglasses in this one:

The sunglasses are a bit more apparent here:

The contrast with American teens (or what Eliza and I recognize with American teens) just seemed really dramatic.